Mayor Mike Rawlings for U.S. Senate in 2014? Little Birds Talk.

The Democrats are talking to Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings about running for the U.S. Senate in 2014 when John Cornyn's current term expires. Some Democrats. Some kind of Democrat-type persons. And now you pretty much know what I know.

The mayor reluctantly conceded to me yesterday that he has been approached and that the people who approached him were not Republicans or Whigs. I felt justified in asking him after the second little bird told me about it. The first little bird told me I couldn't say anything, but my basic rule is that I only have to go by the conditions set by the last little bird I talked to.

I said to the mayor, "I'm talking to this bird, this little bird, and this little bird tells me that the Democrats are looking at Mike Rawlings for the Senate."

See, for me and most of the conversations I have with people, that's absolute effusiveness. At least he didn't say, "How did you get this number?"

Rawlings gave me 85 ways to Sunday why he's not interested in talking to me or anybody else about partisan politics right now.

"Look, Jim, there are several reasons why that's a bad idea. Reason one is I promised the citizens of Dallas that I'm going to be mayor, OK? Question two is I'm way too fiscally conservative for the Democrats and way too progressive for the Republicans on the social issues."

I said sure, yeah, I understood that, but I wondered if there might not be a lot going on with the Democrats and the Republicans alike that might make them all want to shoot themselves anyway, as Chris Christie recently proposed, and find some totally new blood.

Didn't work.

He said, "The role of mayor is to stay out of this partisan hogwash as much as I can, so opining on different positions of the Democratic and Republican parties gets me in the middle of that."

Tried again with some other limp line. He said, "The most important thing for me is to keep figuring out this stuff at City Hall and trying to get people, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, to see that these cities are the real engine drivers in America."

I said, "Some Democrats of some kind of description have approached you about the Senate, right?"

He said, "I think you're reading way too much into that. People talk a lot in different avenues, but that's just bad logic at this point. I've got a commitment to the citizens of Dallas."

Hmm. I said, "Maybe the Republicans will approach you about it next."

He said, "Not the way the Republicans are moving, I don't think so."

There it is! Did you see that? Did you see what he just said? Yeah. Bagged him. In the sack, man. When do we see the billboards?

Since 1998 Jim Schutze has been a columnist for the Dallas Observer, writing about local politics and culture. Schutze has been a recipient of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ national award for best commentary twice and Lincoln University’s national Unity Award for writing on civil rights and racial issues three times. In 2003 he received the National Association of Black Journalists’ award for commentary. In 2011 Schutze was admitted to the Texas Institute of Letters.